Nerve Gas Move Is Barred Till Judge Hears All Views

WASHINGTON, Aug. 13—A Federal judge ordered the Army today not to move a ship laden with nerve gas from her North Carolina berth until all possi bilities for disposing of the lethal cargo had been consid ered by the court.

Judge June L. Green of the United States District Court here said she would hear clos ing arguments at 9:30 A.M. tomorrow.

The judge had spent the day listening to testimony from at torneys and scientists for the Army and the Environmental De. fense Fund, who attacked anc defended the plan to scuttle the old Liberty ship's hulk of the coast of Florida.

After the day's testimony and ???naving been up all night read ing this material,” the judge said she was “exhausted.” She told Federal attorneys that the Army might continue to load the concrete and steel vaults containing the rockets that have warheads filled with nerve gas, but she said the ship could not be moved pending her de cision.

Federal attorneys said that loading at the Sunny Point Army Terminal in Southport, N.C., was scheduled to be corn pleted by tomorrow, while the hulk, the old liberty ship Le’ Baron Russell Briggs, might be ready to be towed to sea by Saturday.

Attorneys for the Environ mental Defense Fund, supported by lawyers for the State’ of Florida, argued that Other al ternatives existed to the plan to sink the ship and her cargo] 282 miles east of Cape Kennedy in 16,000 feet of water on Tuesday. Florida's Governor, Claude R. Kirk Jr., has ob jected to the scuttling plan.

The alternatives cited to the plan included moving the vaults around the country for em placement in surplus missile silos that would be filled with neutralizing chemicals, placing the vaults in neutralizing chem icals aboard the ship before sinking, and scuttling the vessel in a submarine “death valley” off the coast of Venezuela.

The latter area, called the Blake Basin, is a deep trench whose water is almost static.’ The turnover of water in the basin, according to one esti mate, would take place every 16,000 years so that even if the nerve gas seeped out it would not affect the surrounding ecology for many thousands of years.

“May I ask you if Venezuela has been consulted on this?” Judge Green asked the main Environmental Defense Fund attorney, Mrs. Lola Lea of New York, who was once a lawyer for Howard. Hughes.

Mrs. Lea said the matter had not been discussed with Vene zuella. Her group is an associa tion of lawyers, scientists and conservationists organized in 1967 for efforts to preserve the environment by legal means.

Concealment Laid to Army Mrs. Lea charged that the

Army had tried to conceal plans’ for dumping the nerve gas so that there was “precious little time for an interested party to go into court.”

As an expert witness, she produced Dr. John D. Isaacs, professor of oceanography and direlctor of marine ife research at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, Calif.

Dr. Isaacs, who placed un derwater photographs into the record as exhibits, said that many forms of marine life ex isted at 16,000 foot depths. The Army has contended that little marine life exists at such great depths. Dr. Isaacs advocated placing the vaults in a neutral izing chemical aboard the ship to counter the effects of their rapid disintegration.

Appearing as an expert wit ness for the Army, Dr. Victor Linnenbom, superintendent of oceans division of the Naval Research Laboratory, said the Florida area was the safest site. Dr. Linnenbom said he would not scuttle the ship off the New Jersey coast, where other shipments of nerve gas were dumped in 1967 and 1968, because that area was on the continental slope and thus sub ject to greater current action than off Florida.

Kenly Webster, the Army's deputy general counsel, testi fied that one of the 418 vaults contains the nerve gas VX, which is deadlier than the GB gas in the rocket warheads, But, he said, it is not known which vault contains the ‐VX, which requires years of sea water action to neutralize.

The Army spokesman con ceded that no tests had been made on the effect that sub mersion at a depth of 16,000 feet might have on concrete and that therefore the results of the dumping could not be precisely forecast.

They conceded that the con crete “coffins” containing the GB and VX gas could break and kill some life in the ocean depths.

Today's hearing was the latest in a month‐long series of episodes, including internation al protests and Congressional hearings, over the Army's plan to dump the nerve gas in the Atlantic.

The Army has contended that the chances of harmful effects were nil, and went ahead this week with its plans by shipping by train the rockets from depots in Alabama and Kentucky to the marine depot in North Carolina.

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A version of this archives appears in print on August 14, 1970, on Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Nerve Gas Move Is Barred Till Judge Hears All Views. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe